Living in Hope by Frank Byrne

Reviewed by Ian Lipke

Bruce Pascoe reminds Frank Byrne’s readers that “this is a very strong story of survival. A tragic reminder of the harshness and unfairness of the mission era but also the toughness and determination of our people”; while Jo Dutton writes that “Frank Byrne was a gentleman in every sense. He spoke softly with great authority about those things he knew of stock work, family and resilience and much much more. He loved his family and wanted to share with them his journey to give them a sense of perspective of “living with hope” as he had managed to do despite the adversity he had faced. He was a lovely singer and musician and we very much enjoyed the nights he’d sing with us and friends. He is deeply missed by his families and friends.

The book Living in Hope is a memoir, an historical account written from personal knowledge. Frank was well qualified to write this account, as well-known public figure Patrick Dodson testifies. “His was a life well lived, yet ever blighted by his forced removal by government agents from his Aboriginal mother and extended family at age six” (Foreword).

Frank’s story begins at his birth in 1937 and details an idyllic life living with his parents on Christmas Creek Station. If Frank’s stories of catching kangaroos, turkeys and emus seem a little far fetched it is probably because they have been blessed with the patina of time and, rather than being untrue, they are likely to be gilded with an imagination with which all children are blessed. Frank’s stories of adult life are undoubtedly true and tell of a life full of incidents unknown to most dwellers of western lands today.

Frank’s tales ring with the beauty of authenticity. He lived the incidents he includes in his book: A truck bogged in a dam is released using a method Frank details. Breakers these days still accustom horses to the saddle using a variation on Frank’s method. Much of the preparation for the year to come following the wet season is as Frank lists it. Interfamilial relationships as Frank describes them are common.

The mission station listed below is easily recognisable as belonging to the 1950s.

“There were dormitories for the girls and dormitories for the boys. There was a dining room for the girls and a dining room for the boys too. There was a uniform to wear for school and a Sunday one for church. There were workshops and bakers and vegetable gardens a orchards and donkeys. And there was that ocean – we’d never seen the ocean before” (55).

Frank describes his idyllic existence. He writes of a land about which he can brook no criticism. It is a simple land where people of his own and of mixed races work together to the betterment of all. Its key is simplicity. Frank scarcely mentions the jealousies of the white races. His simplistic view of his own lifetime makes brief mention of the Vesey family. Where someone denigrates the efforts of another race e.g., black people were rarely paid a wage, this is quickly passed over.

Frank Byrne’s memoir is solid gold. I read it cover to cover. I think all readers would wish him the best there is now that he has reached the land hereafter.

Living in Hope

(2022)

By Frank Byrne

Running Water Community Press

ISBN: 978 064806 294 3

$34.99; 368 pp

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